What's Going on at the Large Hadron Collider?
This week, I attempt to assure readers that the LHC will not destroy Earth due to a solar eclipse.
You may have heard the recent news about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, one of the most powerful particle accelerators, being scheduled for use on April 8th. This event also happens to be on the same day a total solar eclipse will occur, observable in North America. Unfortunately, the misinformation being circulated is rife, especially on social media platforms like Twitter/X. Some claims suggest that CERN is attempting to open a portal to another dimension (with some suggesting this has already been achieved), create a black hole on Earth, or more outlandishly, summon demons.
Putting these claims aside, the LHC has been undergoing continuous upgrades since its inaugural tests in the late 2000s. The most recent upgrade, the High-Luminosity LHC, is scheduled for full operation by 2027. It will significantly increase the energy of particle collisions and widen our knowledge of particle physics by delving deeper into some unanswered questions, like the events that unfolded at the start of the Big Bang. Unlike what the readers of a certain tabloid might think, the Earth will not be destroyed due to these high-energy collisions - even if black holes were to be created at the LHC, they would only exist for a fraction of a second and be far too small to grow in size or pose any threat.
The LHC experiment has been at the forefront of scientific discovery. In 2012, the discovery of the Higgs boson was heralded as one of the greatest achievements in modern science following decades of theoretical work. What makes the Higgs boson exciting is that it’s a fundamental particle, meaning it cannot be split into smaller parts (an atom, for example, is not fundamental because it contains protons, neutrons, and electrons). It’s responsible for the physical manifestation of the Higgs field in the same way that photons are responsible for the electromagnetic field (light). The Higgs field is what “gives” the other particles their masses - without it, the Universe wouldn’t exist in the state we see it today.